Bill Roper: Our short to mid-term goal is looking at a team to a team-and-a-half. Somewhere in the 30 to 45 person range. We don't have any visions of running two or three teams working on multiple projects. We want to create a game and have a smaller-sized team that supports the game, through patches, more content or expansions. It gives us a lot of flexibility. If we have a team and a half, we can keep a whole team on that project supporting it. That allows the core group of guys to move on to start laying the ground work for the next game. As that game becomes more defined, you're usually able to pull people off that supporting team. This allows us to constantly support our game that's out while still working on the next one.

Really, we all believe that the best games are made in small studios. I think one of the reasons that the Blizzard games are great is that, though it's a big company, they do everything they can to get that small studio feel with each of the development teams. That's why the games are great. We're big proponents of keeping our team lean and reasonable and excited and into what they're doing. We can get a lot of success out of that.

IGNPC: For some reason, I'm reminded of CCR suing John Fogerty because his songs sounded too much like CCR. Do you anticipate that kind of comparison? How can you distance yourself from the Blizzard model while keeping true to your own spirit?

Bill Roper: The biggest comparison we want to have is to have people say we're making great games. That's always something people said and continue to say about Blizzard. I want people to look forward to what we're doing as much as they did the stuff in the past. The CCR stuff is interesting. That's his sound; unless he goes out and does something totally foreign, there has to be some level of familiarity.

We know that there's a lot of things that aren't technology tied or world tied and haven't been part of anything that we've done before other than that they're core development philosophies we have. There are ways that we make games, things that we think are fun, ways we want to reward players, ways that we structure and make the games. Out of that, especially if you're looking for it, you'll find similarities. Nothing that we've talked about or are working on will make people say, "It's just this." I think people can make those connections and see where the spirit is and say, "I can understand how this hearkens to that because the same guys made both things." I don't feel anyone will say we're just making another version of this game. Consciously and subconsciously that's in our every thought. We want to make sure people recognize this as a Flagship Studios game. This is the next big thing. We don't want to chase our success; we want to do the new thing.

IGNPC: Can you be at all specific about that?

Bill Roper: No!

IGNPC: Oh, well. I had to ask.

Bill Roper: It's so far out. We're trying to be thoughtful of the fact that we're still not even with a publisher. We're sure they'd want to work out the timing. The first time we really talk about what the game is about, we want to be able to show it to people. That speaks volumes more than even someone who blabs on a lot (like me) can say. There's nothing like sitting down and playing the game. That's something we're huge proponents of. It's the way we develop the game. As soon as possible, the game is up and running and you're putting stuff in.

If you have a concept, you prototype. Whether you're using a Go board or pieces from another game or whether you're putting it in the engine, that's how you find out if it's fun. You can come up with ideas and write them down but you don't know if they'll be fun until you're actually trying it and seeing how it plays.

It works the same way with how things work and look. The best way to see is to get it in the game. We do massive amounts of iteration. That's what most of our development process is built around -- having this up and functioning as soon as possible. Then you do everything to make sure the game is always playable. We don't want any down time where you can't load the game up. Then iterate like crazy. Put something in. If it's fun, keep it in and you keep working on it to make it more fun. You find out how to attach things to it that leech off its funness. If you put something in and it stinks, you pull it back out. It sounds simple but it's a lot of work and everyone has to be very dedicated from day one to maintain that process. It's easy to get into big code rewrites where the game is down for two weeks or a month. That's tough; that's time that we can't try out new things in the environment.

IGNPC: So you're already up and running then?

Bill Roper: Yeah, we're putting things in. Something gets drawn and it gets put into the game. Somebody comes up with an idea and a day or two later it's in the game. Something that's essential is that we really don't care what it looks like; before we put a monster in to the game it doesn't need to look beautiful or animate. We're happy to put a big block with an M on it.